RIYADH, Jan 2: Saudi Arabia has fined three stock traders a record 169 million riyals ($45 million) for market manipulation and banned them for three years over the latest scandal to hit booming Gulf Arab bourses.

The Saudi Capital Markets Authority (CMA) said on Monday the men were punished for flouting rules against deliberately providing misleading or advantageous information to investors.

The decision stipulated that they (traders) will be prevented for three years from dealing in listed companies or membership of their boards, the statement said, without disclosing the identity of the traders.

One was fined 146.6 million riyals, another 17.1 million and the third 5.3 million. CMA spokesman Abdelaziz Alzoom said these were heaviest penalties the market regulator had imposed so far.

It’s more serious than previous cases, which were insider trading. This is manipulation of price and giving a false impression (about stocks), he told Reuters.

The Saudi market, the largest in the Arab world, has been tainted by allegations of irregularities as have other bourses in the world’s top oil exporting region.

Although public investigations are relatively rare, authorities across the Gulf are trying to clean up their act as governments woo foreign investors to help develop the financial services industry.

In October the CMA said it was investigating a number of alleged share price manipulations by traders and a broker.

In June it announced that it would punish 44 executives and board members of listed companies after they traded shares in their own companies in the weeks leading up to profit announcements.

The CMA did not say how the traders had manipulated the market in the latest scam but listed the stocks involved as: Saudi Electricity Co., Saudi Advanced Industries Tabuk Agricultural Development, Saudi Industrial Development, Food Products, Riyad Bank, National Gas and Industrialisation, Saudi Automotive.—Reuters